Mainland Europe

The new Silk Route, or “Belt and Road Initiative” (BRI), is a major policy initiative developed by China to improve connectivity between Asia and Europe. Although no official definition of the BRI exists, it refers to six major land corridors across the Eurasian continent and a network of maritime routes connecting Asia with Africa and Europe. It connects 65 countries which jointly account for 60% of global Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and 30% of global population.

In January, Inframation Deals released its project finance and league tables trend report for 2017 that captures over USD 437bn in activity, an industry best.

Globally, we are pleased to see Steer Davies Gleave ranking third in deal value in the technical advisory category. Steer Davies Gleave was technical advisor on 20 deals that reached financial close in 2017. The value of these transactions exceeded USD 16.2bn.

On the 1st September 2017 the A11 Brugge Design, Build, Finance and Maintain (DBFM) Motorway in Belgium, was successfully opened to traffic after approximately 3.5 years of strict planning, management and construction. The project, part of the Trans-European Transport (TEN-T) network, consists of a 13km 2-lane highway which completes the missing link between the N31 at Brugge and the N49 at Knokke.

The last decade has been difficult for transport infrastructure providers. After years of reliable growth, motorway traffic fell or remained static, after the 2008 financial crisis. Traffic through airports, railways and even ferries also suffered.

However, it seems that across Europe the market has stabilised, and we are again seeing progressive traffic recovery and growth. In response, there is a growing appetite for investment in the sector through new PPP schemes, and specially through secondary sales/acquisitions and refinancing.

Steer Davies Gleave and KPMG have teamed up for this three-part series that seeks to better understand the potential impacts of AVs on parking demand, location, operation, and revenues. This series includes an in-depth review of potential outcomes, timings, and alternative futures. You can read the first article here.